A satellite remote control receiver is located on board a geostationary or non-geostationary satellite and implements a link for remote control and distance measurement between the ground stations and said satellite, which is known by the term TTC link for “Telemetry, Tracking and Command”.
The known solutions of TTC receiver architectures use a local oscillator, most often delivering a fixed frequency or a restricted number of frequencies. By varying the frequency of the local oscillator or oscillators, flexibility of the reception frequency of the receiver is obtained. This frequency can be made programmable and remotely controllable by using a local integer or fractional frequency synthesis oscillator.
The use of a synthesizer of the known fractional type combines the advantages of very wideband frequency coverage while ensuring a very fine frequency selection increment. This possibility of reconfiguring the frequency of a TTC receiver makes it possible, for example, to coordinate the frequencies of a plurality of satellites during a change of orbital position or to avoid using certain frequencies which experience interference.
One of the major drawbacks of using a fractional synthesizer in TTC receiver architectures is due to the degradation of performances for certain predefined frequency bands.